SCREEN GEMS.

Nanni Moretti retrospective

July 06, 2001|By John Petrakis. Special to the Tribune.

At this year's Cannes Film Festival, Italian director Nanni Moretti was presented the Palme d'Or (grand prize) for "Our Son's Room," the story of how a family copes with the accidental death of its youngest son.

For those with limited exposure to Moretti's films, including filmgoers who continue to be influenced by the "The Italian Woody Allen" label -- which has been sticking to him for years -- this tragic tale of personal loss and rediscovery may seem out of character. But starting this week and continuing through July, the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago is presenting a Moretti retrospective that displays the emotional range of his work, a collection that cuts a swath through comedy and tragedy with equal skill.

"Ecce Bombo" ((star)(star)(star)), which put Moretti on the international cinematic map in 1978, is a crazy quilt of a film about a group of bright but bored students whose attitudes toward family, friends, politics and sex seem bathed in ennui. Moretti stars as Michele (Moretti's on-screen alter ego), who starts out as annoyingly smug as the rest, but slowly experiences a sort of self-discovery through the eyes of a sensitive but mentally disturbed young woman. She doesn't show him the way out of the emotional jungle, but her honest face suggests that she may be the light at the end of the tunnel. (5 p.m. Sunday)

Sixteen years later, Moretti turned out what many still consider to be his masterwork, the quirky but revealing "Dear Diary" ((star)(star)(star)1/2). Broken into three parts, all narrated by Moretti as journal entries, the film attempts to tackle issues through the act of observation. In the first part, Moretti zips around on his motorbike while commenting on the brutal state of contemporary cinema. In the second section, he travels by boat with a friend to get a better eye on Italian politics and contemporary culture. The third and most moving section documents in great detail Moretti's fight with cancer, starting with a case of incessant, undiagnosed itching, and leading through a maze of incompetent doctors who don't seem to hear what their patients are saying. (6 p.m. Friday; 2 p.m. Saturday)

Other films on deck for this look back include 1981's "Sweet Dreams," about a neurotic young filmmaker who is trying to complete his screenplay for "Freud's Mother"; 1984's "The Mass is Ended," about a young parish priest who must win over his skeptical parishioners; 1989's "Palombella Rossa," about an official of the Communist Party whose bout with amnesia leads to an allegorical water polo match; and 1998's "April," an examination of Italian politics that takes place as Moretti's first child is being born.

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"Nanni Moretti: Left Laughing" plays through the month of July at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St. Tickets: $8 ($4 for members). 312-846-2800.